So, you want to know about SEO? Where do you learn? What should you learn? How should you start? Well, there are a few options open to you, so let’s look at each.

Self taught, on the job:

This is always going to be one of the best ways for you to find out what works for your particular niche.  No matter what other tactics you use to get your knowledge to the level it needs to be, this is where you’re going to get most of your experience.

Reading & Participation:

• Books are a fairly decent source of information; although in a lot of cases, they can tend to be outdated rather quickly in this industry.
• E-Books have the benefit of being more regularly updated and therefore, more current.
• Reading the right blogs can give you insight into industry trends and direction.  Although, not many bloggers give out their closely guarded secrets to one and all.
• Forums are another great repository of information.  By participating, you can help shape the discussion and get answers for problems that have perplexed you.

Conferences:

There are many conferences held throughout the world that purport to provide SEO training.  Some concentrate on specific topics while others cover general topics with maybe topic specific tracks to follow. The topic of conferences was covered in our Monday post, so I’m not going to go into it again here.

On-site training:

On-site training gives you and your company personal attention with targeted training to your needs and directed towards your niche.  So, when you apply the concepts you’ve learned, they’re easier for you to move forward with. Again, we covered this topic more in our Monday post.

What to learn?

It sounds simple, but what you need to know is what you don’t already know. When you’re starting out in SEO, you need to start with the basics:

• Keyword Research
• Site Architecture
• On-page Optimization
• Internal Linking
• External Linking

Once you have those down, you need to then look at other, wider topics to see how they can impact / assist with your SEO campaigns:

• Social Media
• Analytics
• Multiple Channel Marketing

Where you are in your own knowledge impacts what you need to learn. We typically run training classes on client sites for people of all knowledge levels – from zero knowledge to experienced. As long as we work with the client beforehand to establish the topics and skill levels of the attendees, the course(s) are tailored to meet those needs.  That’s what you need to be looking for your training partner to do as well.

My inbox is crammed with Social Media Training announcements.  Sometimes I wonder if the people giving trainings on social media marketing outnumber online content creators. (Maybe this is the next study for The Pew Internet and American Life Project?)

I’ve given a fair number of Social Media (SM) trainings and sat in on a few. At most, the classroom setting provides an overview of the space:

What is SM?
Why it is important
SM by the numbers (demographics, user generated content data)
SM tools
Top sites or destinations for user generated content (Facebook, Linkedin, etc.)
Tactical case studies

These trainings provide a nice introduction to the basics but what they do not, and cannot possibly do, is equip you with a social media strategy for your organization.  Unfortunately, I’ve had more than one client who came to us (in a panic) after taking a basic training, selecting a tactic used in one of the case studies presented and setting off boldly to “participate in the conversation”.  At best, the initiative fell flat (the tree fell in the forest and no one was around to hear it).  At worst, it stirred up a hornets’ nest that the organization wasn’t prepared to deal with and soured senior management on the whole concept of Web 2.0 communications.

Don’t get me wrong – I think basic trainings are great for, well, understanding the basics.  However, as I noted in my post last week, thinking through a strategy (from the readiness of your organization to the needs of your customers/constituents) is a critical first step.

At Serengeti, we prefer to create customized trainings and workshops that help lay the foundation for creating that strategy and/or build the organizational infrastructure needed to successfully implement a strategy.  Customized trainings and workshops offer a number of advantages:

• More in-depth content (detailed coverage of a broader range of topics, including search and social media, reputation management, etc.)
• Coverage of issues in a way that is relevant to the client (legal/policy issues, organizational readiness, etc.)
• Case studies that are specific to the client’s customer or constituent base
• Content that is tailored to the knowledge and skill level of the staff and addresses key concerns
• Specific skill development, such as crisis response, social media optimization tactics, Blog outreach, etc.
• A structure that makes the material easier to digest (i.e., several sessions that build on one another) and on-site workshops that don’t require staff to travel.

Yes, a customized training will cost you more (you get what you pay for).  So if you aren’t ready for a custom training and you want a good, thorough overview of the space, try the workshops offered as part of Search Engine Strategies training days.

Several years ago, I worked at a company who bought an enterprise Web analytic packages with implementation services and training. The analytics company sent a consultant to help with the implementation and deliver the training. The training was three and a half consecutive days. For almost the entire time, we went through the configuration options, page by page. It was a frustrating experience since I felt that I was perfectly capable of clicking into each page, reading what was available, and figuring out how I wanted to configure things. The consultant knew the ins and outs of the product and I felt a bit gypped since we didn’t really get the benefit of his knowledge and experience. We just got a walk-thru of every option.

I ended up truly learning the product by a combination of reading the manual, using the product, and trial and error. In talking with others who have been through this type of situation, my experience was definitely not unique.

Fast forward a few years and I was the one providing the training for a web analytics product. We took a lot of time putting together a training program designed to be helpful, not just showcasing the features of the product. We wanted the training to help the users understand how to use the product to do a better job and make them more successful.

I felt that the first session laid a good groundwork about what one needed to know, especially if they were new to analytics. The first few times of delivering the session, I was impressed that people seemed to ‘get it.’ There were not a lot of questions asked and when I asked if everyone understood, I got a positive response. However, I learned when beginning the next session that the silence and positive response was not always a good indicator. In talking with other co-workers who also delivered the training, we realized that we needed to take it back even a bigger step.

This was a eye-opening experience to me. The bottom line was that we were in analytics day in and day out – but the reality is that most marketers are not, and will never be. So, we went back to the drawing board and revamped the training.

It was quite a change. The first session became much more interactive, customers asking more questions. As much as our customers were learning about analytics, we were learning about what they didn’t know, what concepts were very complicated, and what they were able to pick up quickly. It was a great experience and it helped us to continually evolve and improve our training.

A few more years have passed and more and more and more marketers are now being held accountable for proving ROI on campaigns, understanding what visitors are doing on their Web sites, and knowing how to use analytics. Unfortunately from what I hear, many analytics vendors have not changed their approach to training. It is still a ‘one-size fits all’ situation. This is very disappointing because it puts the person who is expected to learn the product at a real disadvantage and may even turn them off from analytics completely.

A good analytic training should begin with understanding the business needs and goals of a company. And the program should be tailored to the level of the people being trained. Not everyone knows the KPIs of their company, or even what a KPI is. At Serengeti, our approach to analytics training is creating a customized training program based on your very specific needs. Click here to learn more or to get started now.

Updated Note: As more analytic tools become free it it is important not to assume that the tools are simple and easy to use.  Training for free tools is just as important as training for a solution that you purchase.

Search Marketing is a relatively new field.  It’s been around less than a decade, but it’s a field that has evolved a great deal over the years. But, tactics that worked as recently as 2005 may not work now. How can a company keep its staff up to speed on the changes & ensure they are on the right path to maximize the effectiveness of their search campaigns?

Training

Ok, not just basic training.  But, training by people who know what they’re talking about; people who do the work on a daily basis; people who keep their finger on the pulse of the industry; and people who try different, innovative ideas to see what works and what doesn’t.

The next challenge is how you decide to spend your training budget. Do you spend it to send one member of your staff to a conference in a faraway city?  And, hope that they’ll attend the right sessions, get something out of them, then return to the office, and disseminate that knowledge amongst the rest of the staff?  Or, do you find someone that can come in and personally train your entire staff in your location?

Here at Serengeti, we handle both kinds of training.  We speak at many conferences yearly on varying topics (Search, PPC, email, Social Media, Reputation Management, and Analytics, amongst others) as well as developing customized training solutions for many of our clients. So, what are the benefits of each?

Let’s start by looking at conferences.

At conferences - there’s a variety of speakers, some good, some great, some not so good (they tend to get weeded out, but that doesn’t help you if a member of your staff ends up sitting with them).  Speakers introduce a variety of topics, which your staff member can pick and choose between to select the optimal mix for their benefit.

On the downside, there may not be that many sessions that relate directly to your vertical or your particular situation. This can lead to sessions that provide less benefits for you than you’d like. True, there are Q&A opportunities at the end of sessions to ask your specific questions.  But, if a session runs late – time will be cut back and you’ll compete with everyone else with a raised hand.

With customized training, the Serengeti team can come to you and present our expertise and evaluations to your team about your situation and possibilities. 

So, which works best for you? It depends on your goals. If you’re looking to get one person exposed to the industry and get them to do some networking with other attendees; then the conference is the way to go. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for more of a department/corporate wide solution; then you need to find the right people to handle that for you.  You can partner with them to develop a program that works out best for you and your organization, with the cost for either option being comparable.

When managing PPC campaigns, it can be easy to get bogged down in the day to day management of the accounts and overlook critical areas that impact the overall performance. Too often, we see complacency settle in as PPC accounts seem to run along smoothly – meeting the goals that were originally set at the beginning of the project. But, if you were to step back and take a subjective look at the data – you will most likely discover certain issues that are being masked by the so-called success of the account as a whole.

This is why it is important to conduct an audit of PPC accounts quarterly or bi-annually. While these can be time consuming, the insights learned from a correctly run audit will have an impact on the performance of the account that will ulitmately, surpass the resources that are put into it.

An audit needs to first take a step back and review the initial goals and success metrics that were established. Have these changed since the PPC account was created? Are there additional goals or metrics that have been created that need to be taken into account?

Confirming or reestablishing the goals and success metrics will provide the basis for the completion of the audit and to answer these questions.

Now, if you have determined that there are additional goals or success metrics that need to be factored in, it is time to evaluate how the PPC account has been performing. This is a four-step process that analyzes the keywords, ad copy, landing pages, and account structure.

Keywords: In evaluating the keyword performance, you should ideally base your analysis on the previous 3-4 months worth of data – taking into account any seasonality that typically occurs. The report you pull should include impressions, clicks, cost, conversions, average position, and bid amount. 

Calculations for click-through rate, cost-per-click, conversion rate, and cost-per-conversion must also be considered. When appropriate, it should include the conversion value and return on advertising spend.

You can then evaluate each keyword based on the goals and success metrics that have been established. (Hint: It will make your life much easier, if you’ve created a pivot table based on the raw data … before you begin your analysis).  This will tell you which keywords are working well and which are not, but that is just the beginning. Just because a keyword isn’t performing well, does not mean that it’s a bad keyword.

To fully understand, you need to look at the big picture and take into account all the factors at play. Some areas to look at include:

• the average position
• the ad copy
• the landing page that each keyword is using
• your Web analytics data to evaluate the behavior of visitors that are coming in on those keywords

Ad Copy: The ad copy is the next step in the audit. In order to do this, you’ll need a report that details the impressions, clicks, conversions, CTR, and conversion rate for each ad. Based on your analysis, you should be able to determine what ads are underperforming and determine if they are not working because of poor copy.  Poor ad group structure that combine keywords which need to be separated out into their own ad groups can also deter your performance.

Landing Pages: The next step is to analyze the landing pages that are being utilized. In order to do this properly, you’ll need to pull reports for each landing page that is being used from your Web analytics package.

Doing so, will allow you to understand what visitors are interested in when they get to the landing page or if uninterested are bouncing immediately after getting to the page. Understanding the links they click on and the content they are consuming, will allow you to rework the landing pages and begin testing variations.

When analyzing landing pages, it’s important to take into account the keywords that are driving visitors to the page and the ad copy that is being used. These all play into how a landing page will perform in case your ad copy may not be promising something that may be delivered on the landing page.  Or, there may be keywords that drive traffic but are not relevant enough for the current landing page copy.

By doing this analysis, you may find that your ad copy needs to be reworked, that you need to rework your landing pages, or that you need additional landing pages that speak more directly to certain keyword groups.

Account Structure: Once you’ve completed the previous three tasks, you’re now ready to evaluate the overall account structure. Using your findings, you’ll be able to determine if new campaigns need to be created.  If additional ad groups need to be created within existing campaigns … what are the areas to expand your keyword list and what are the areas to enhance ad copy changes that need to be made?

Implementing these changes will improve the performance of the account by creating more targeted campaigns and ad groups that speak directly to the needs of the searchers who will be exposed to your ads and your site.

Conducting a full PPC audit every quarter or biannually will eliminate the tendency to become complacent.  You’ll find the hidden problems that – when corrected – will allow the PPC account to not just meet your goals but to exceed the goals that have been created.

One of our ‘bread and butter’ tasks here at Serengeti Communications is that of the Search Audit. We will either perform these in conjunction with an Analytics Audit, or stand alone. That said, what is in a search audit? What do you find out? How does it help you?

Let’s start at the beginning and walk through it step by step.

1. The search audit basically starts off by taking a look at your current site. This indepth analysis looks at the structure of the pages on your site and the underlying architecture – to ascertain whether your current structure supports your intended goals.
2. Next, we take a look to see what your site is currently ranking for. In most cases, that’s not what you think you should be ranking for.
3. Then, we take a look at your identified vertical competitors to see what & how they’re performing.
4. Following that, we perform indepth keyword analysis to see what you should be attempting to rank for.  For this, we use several research tools, as well as information garnered from your competitors’ sites. Note: the highest traffic keywords may not be those that are the best for your site – those that bring the highest level of qualified traffic are.
5. Should you be performing PPC or wanting to perform PPC, we create an optional report showing the anticipated costs for the recommended keywords, as well as expected traffic for each across the various PPC providers.
6. The final section of the document details the recommendations for the site, and outlines an action plan along with any anticipated costs, should you decide to implement the recommendations internally. We’ll also include a proposal if you’d like us to implement the recommendations.
7. We come in and present the key points & recommendations of the document, and answer any questions that you may have.

Essentially, you come out of the process with a audit document that you can use to evaluate the current status of your site, and a path forward to the next level for your site.

Social Media is everywhere (it is, quite literally, what people do on the Internet today) and there is no shortage of tactical advice and examples of “Social Media campaigns” online. But beware: Jumping into Social Media without a well thought out strategy and a real understanding of the space increases your chances of a serious misstep. It can even leave your brand worse off than it was before.

A Social Media Audit can help you create a solid strategy and understand potential risks, opportunities and rewards before you jump in.

What does a Social Media Audit tell you? A good Social Media Audit covers everything from nuts and bolts strategic decisions (goals, target audiences, success metrics, etc.) to the finer points of program execution (legal/policy constraints and internal requirements) — and everything in between. Buzz Monitoring is an important part of the Social Media Audit because it helps provide a deeper understanding of the group(s) you want to engage with and any opportunities or challenges that may lay in wait.

Some of the critical elements addressed in a Social Media Audit are:

Brand/product credibility and position: How credible is your brand/product online? Are people saying nasty things about you that could blow up in your face if you enter the space unaware? In one of our recent Audits, we found that there was a serious misperception (and consequently, some negative buzz) about the features of a particular product. If the client had jumped into Social Media without knowing that this was a problem, the response could have been disastrous.

“Audience” Research: How are your customers or constituents currently engaging in Social Media on the Web? Are they Social Media savvy? Will they be receptive to this type of engagement? Is there a need you could help fill in order to create good will among an existing community? Successful initiatives build on the audience’s interests. What your customers/constituents want and the activities that they are already engaging in (without being prompted) should drive key decisions about where, when and how you engage.

Organizational readiness: How “Social Media ready” is your organization? Are there legal constraints (regulated industries for example) or internal policy issues that impact what you can and cannot do with Social Media? Is the organization willing to cede some control over defining the brand? What is the organization prepared to do in regards to ethics and transparency?

Requirements: What are the likely time requirements and investments? Social Media engagement requires a time committment (not just from the marketing staff), good content and often the creation of new tools and Web properties. Your staff will also need some training (engagement ethics, organizational policy around Social Media, etc.).

Competition: Are your competitors engaged? If so, are there lessons to be learned — successes, failures, something unique you might be able to provide?

True, Social Media requires ceding control, but trust me, taking a willy nilly approach to the space is not where you want (or need) to let go. While you cannot and should not attempt to control the voices of your customers, you can certainly control your own behavior — your approach, the discussions you raise, your response, etc. A Social Media Audit can go a long way towards smoothing your foray into the space.

The choice to become a data driven organization is a very important one (we’ve written about this topic often on Endless Plain) because it is the first step toward making big ROI gains. Once data becomes the focus for marketing decision making, it is important to ensure that you understand what to measure, what not to measure, and what to expect.  Most importantly,  you must have confidence in the data and findings you share among internal stakeholders.

But how do you know if your data is accurate? If it isn’t, the actionable recommendations you make based on the data generated by your Web Analytics program may not help you much.  This is why data accuracy is one of the key issues that a good Analytics Audit (one of our most popular service offerings) should address.

The first steps in our Audit process are to review all appropriate information and data sources, establish a good baseline and identify any anomalies or illogical patterns in the data. This generally takes a bit of time and a lot of skill.

We almost always conduct data comparisons (comparing numbers from one Web Analytics program to another) as a means of ensuring accuracy. This can be a confusing and frustrating endeavor if you are not aware of all of the factors that can impact how numbers are reported by each vendor.   However, the comparison process is essential to ensuring that your data is clean and accurate. 

The Analytics Audit can be an eye-opening experience.  Some of the common data accuracy problems we often discover in the course of an Audit include the following:

• Analytics are under-reporting because java script is not on all the pages or incorrect on some pages;
• Analytics are under-reporting because a Web site is load balanced and not all of the logs are being analyzed;
• Analytics are over-reporting visitor traffic because robots and spiders are being counted as visitors;
• Analytics are grossly over-reporting conversions because the conversion code is on the wrong page, so campaigns that looked successful were actually losing money.

Most clients are surprised to find these errors, but there are often even bigger problems that are identified in the course of an Audit — problems that can significantly impact a client’s marketing program and/or Web site.  In one recent Audit, we discovered that fraudulent clicks and no-quality clicks were wasting almost an entire campaign budget.  In another, we discovered that a minor change made to one of the steps in the shopping cart had increased abandonment rate by 27%.

If you’ve made the decision to become a data driven organization, a Serengeti Audit can help you assess the accuracy of your data before you go too far down the road in presenting numbers to internal stakeholders — or worse, making bad marketing decisions based on faulty data.

Last week, I talked about using StumbleUpon to drive traffic to your site. This week, I’m going to touch on using paid advertising in StumbleUpon. Yep, that’s right, just like Facebook – you can pay for targeted traffic from a social media site.

Why do you want to pay? To put your landing page in front of a targeted StumbleUpon audience. To a user, the page appears just like any other stumbled page.  There’s nothing to indicate that it was paid for. As usual, if they like the page, they can thumb it up, and if they dislike it they can thumb it down. When the ad runs its course, those thumbs count. And, if the page has received enough positive votes - it’ll start being displayed organically once more.  So, your paid campaign can boost your organic stumble campaign.

How do you do it? Simply go to the StumbleUpon advertiser interface and sign up (it’s a different login to your regular StumbleUpon account). Once you’re in, all you have to do is enter the URL of your landing page and select the categories that it should be targeted towards. You can select as many as you want, but be careful…each category may respond differently to your page, so choose wisely.

Further targeting allows you to go down to the country, state, or city level; selecting either or both sexes, and determining the age range of the people you want to see your ad.

Funds are added through PayPal, and can take up to 5 days to be added to your account (which will delay your SU ad from launching). Currently, each view costs 5 cents, so for 1,000 views –  you’ll only spend $50. With enough thumbs up, you’ll get many more views for your $ (dollar cost averaging).  So, if you have the content - it’s a worthwhile avenue of exploration.

Naturally, this is a service that we offer as one part of our Social Media Services.  We’ll be more than happy to talk to you about your content and develop & execute a social media strategy for you.

Less than a decade ago, video content was an afterthought in the wide world of the Web. Long load times, intensely pixelated resolution, and the always aggravating ‘red-light, green-light’ buffering led to an increasingly frustrating experience. At that time, online video was a limited content type being served by a medium that didn’t have the capability or the resources to support it.

Looking at the world now, it’s hard to think back to those times. Today, with the proliferation of broadband and better, higher powered computers; everyone everywhere is watching video all the time (well maybe not everyone, but according to a recent study by Pew Internet over 48% of the adult US internet population watched an online video in 2007).

YouTube is the 800lb gorilla of the medium – offering up unbelievable amounts of new user-generated content every hour. Even smaller video congregations such as Metacafe and Yahoo’s Jumpcut still have lots of random, interesting content for anyone to watch.

I know that if I want to see something I’ve never seen before, I can go to any of these video sites and enter the appropriate search terms, click ‘go’, and most times, I can find exactly what I was looking for whether it’s the Fruitcake Lady or a film on the 1920’s Jazz age.

The public’s desire to be visually appeased is more important now than it has ever been, and that desire can be used to the commercial or non-profit advantage. Many firms are starting to see the wonderful and evil things that online video can do. Video can be used to spread your message to current and potential customers and it can also be used by your opponents to besmirch your products and reputation (search for “Chevy” in YouTube).

Video can be used to inform the public about current issues and can also be used to misinform Americans about the facts at hand. Video has most recently been used by the presidential candidates to help spread their messages and rally voters to their causes and issues.  It has also been used by opposition supporters to smear their campaigns and label them as “unamerican” or “illogical,” or whatever the slur of the day happens to be.

Video is such a versatile content type with the capability to do good or ill will, and should be used judiciously.  Used effectively, it can be a very effective tool for your organization. And don’t forget that with Universal Search – more and more of it is showing up in the natural, organic search listings.